India Black and the Shadows of Anarchy (A Madam of Espionage Mystery) (3 page)

He didn’t look the type for idle conversation, nor, indeed, for divulging even so much as his name, so I sat back and contented myself with pondering why the British prime minister had sent directly for his sporadically willing servant, India Black. My previous meetings with Dizzy had always been arranged by French. Well, that was not quite an accurate statement. Usually French scheduled the meeting and dragged me along to it, just to be sure that I’d fall at the feet of the old charmer and agree to steal into the Russian embassy or masquerade as a maid at Balmoral.

My first thought, of course, was that French had cocked up his latest mission and needed my help to straighten out the affair. I felt the urge to fluff my feathers and preen a bit, to be followed by some well-deserved indulgence in the pride of sin (one can always ask forgiveness later), when a dreadful thought struck me like a blow. What if French had been injured, or worse, had gotten himself scragged? I could see it, I really could, given the poncy bastard’s ridiculous commitment to the standards of conduct he’d learned at Eton or Winchester or wherever he’d spent his youth. It would be just like the man to offer his opponent the chance to get off the floor and recover his knife before the fight continued. My stomach clenched and I felt a faint palpitation near what I assumed to be the location of my heart. Damn Mrs. Drinkwater’s wretched food; I must find a proper cook someday.

I cast a glance at my traveling companion, to see if the news of French’s fate might be discerned from his expression, but deuced if it wasn’t like staring at the Sphinx’s profile. There was nothing to do but watch the rain drench the few pedestrians on the sidewalks, and drum my fingers on my knee until the Egyptian statue cast me a sidelong glance and I dispensed with that diversion. It wasn’t far to the Langham, but it felt like we had journeyed to Edinburgh by the time we arrived. I piled out of the carriage, ignoring Dizzy’s messenger, and made for the door.

I set a sharpish pace to the prime minister’s suite, and my chum just managed to maneuver around me to knock on the door and announce our presence before I burst into the room like a schoolmaster smelling smoke in the dormitory.

TWO

B
enjamin Disraeli, prime minister of Great Britain and her colonies, was lounging before the fire, wrapped in a paisley shawl and paging slowly through a thick sheaf of papers. He looked the very picture of an aging libertine from the Levant, with his hooked nose and olive skin, reclining on the sofa in a canary yellow dressing gown of velvet with a sable collar and a bottle green silk fez covering his thinning black curls. All that was missing was a hookah and the ladies from the seraglio.

“Miss Black is here,” said his minion, quite unnecessarily as Dizzy had looked up from his papers and bestowed a charming smile on me.

“Thank you, Barnard. Please wait until we are finished, and then you may escort Miss Black home.” The fellow bowed himself out, and I was alone with the prime minister.

He started to rise, but I hurried forward and gave him my hand. He bent over it with a kindly expression. “I’m so pleased to see you, my dear. Sit next to me if you will. We have much to discuss, but I would be remiss if I didn’t offer you some refreshment before we begin. I believe you are fond of whisky?”

While I waited for a glass, Dizzy made small talk about the weather and the Russians (he’s a great one for discussing the Russians, and at the moment they were kicking up a fuss in the Ottoman Empire again and Dizzy was having a spot of trouble with the rascals). I nodded sympathetically while he railed about Ivan, but I was studying him carefully. He hadn’t been at all well while we were up at Balmoral, and the place is not exactly a health spa, what with the winds whistling down into the valley off the snow-covered Cairngorms and the Queen refusing to allow fires in any of the rooms. The prime minister was pale (a difficult feat to achieve with that swarthy complexion), and now and then a dry cough interrupted the flow of his conversation, but it would take more than a cold to stop Dizzy once he’s got the bit between his teeth, and so I listened to a lengthy diatribe about the perfidious Russkis. I had to force myself to sit quietly and hear him out, though I was champing at my own bit to find out what had happened to French. I was as nervous as a curate accused of sodomy, but I nodded and smiled and made appropriate noises while Dizzy blathered away. I derived some small consolation from the thought that if things had indeed gone wrong for French, Dizzy would have gone straight to the point. Then I remembered that Dizzy was a politician and constitutionally incapable of direct speech.

The old boy finally ran out of steam. He pushed back a ringlet of hair from his forehead and grinned wryly. “Forgive me, my dear, for rattling on about my present concerns. You must be wondering why I’ve asked you here.”

“Yes,” I replied. Sometimes I marvel at my sangfroid.

There was a light rap at the door and Barnard pushed it open. “Superintendent Stoke has arrived.”

“Ah,” said Dizzy. “Be so kind, Barnard, as to show him in.” He turned to me. “Superintendent Stoke is with Scotland Yard. He has some information about the matter we’ll be discussing.”

I really don’t enjoy meeting Yard men. Sooner or later one of them is bound to remember me from a previous encounter, and I can assure you that any such meeting would not redound to the benefit of India Black.

Stoke shuffled in, removing his hat and bowing to the prime minister, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d never met the man. He was of the elderly statesman type, with a high, bald forehead, a gaunt face and a moist yellow moustache badly in need of a trim. He nodded at me and at Dizzy’s invitation, seated himself near the fire. I sipped my whisky and waited, for Dizzy’s lengthy peroration on the subject of the Eastern Question had obviously been a means of passing the time until Stoke appeared.

A manservant provided the superintendent with a brandy and refilled my glass with some fine Scotch whisky. I do so enjoy good spirits, especially when they are free. And how many people can say they’ve imbibed with the prime minister in his dressing gown? However, it occurred to me that I’d likely find myself paying for the whisky in some fashion before the night was over, and it would be best to keep my wits about me. I took a demure sip.

“And now, Miss Black, we’ll get down to brass tacks.” The prime minister rearranged his fez. “Have you been reading about these dreadful anarchists in the newspapers?”

“I have. They seem to be popping up everywhere.”

“Like bloody weeds,” growled Stoke. “Shut down one cell and another appears overnight.”

“That is the issue we’d like to discuss with you, Miss Black. The government is concerned at the number of terrorist incidents perpetrated by these cowardly devils.”

“The assassinations?” I asked, for unless you were blind and deaf, you couldn’t have missed the uproar caused by the murder of several of Britain’s leading luminaries. (Or so the newspaper johnnies called them, but I was willing to bet that more than half of them were just the sort of inbred aristocratic bloodsuckers the country could do without. Naturally I did not share this view with Lord Beaconsfield and Superintendent Stoke.)

“Indeed,” said Dizzy. “Lord Carrington was murdered on his daily ride by a bomb planted in a rhododendron bush. Sir William Tetford’s greenhouse was blown up and Sir William and his wife were killed. Last night, the Earl of Ebbechester was cut down when someone threw a bomb into his carriage. These are just the atrocities perpetrated in Superintendent Stoke’s area of authority. There have been others, all over England.”

“And you have no idea who is behind these acts?” I asked.

Stoke sucked his moustache and squinted at me. “Foreigners for the most part. Ashamed to say a few misguided English men and women seem to have joined these bands of ruffians. Heard of the Paris Commune?”

I had not, but resigned myself to doing so. Fortunately, Stoke proved to be excellent at brief summaries.

“Name they use for the radical government formed in Paris in 1871, just after the Frenchies got pummeled by the Prussians. Supposed to be a movement of the people, the working man in particular. Real French government feeling a bit battered and let the people try their hand at running the place for a bit. Proceeded to make a hash of things, passing daft laws that abolished interest on debts and night shifts for the bakery workers. Took over all the property of the Catholic Church. Ended badly, of course. These things often do. French officials finally pulled themselves together and threw out the extremists. Bloody business, that. Lots of the ne’er-do-wells chucked out of Paris ended up here, still burning to put down the ancien régime, only now they’ve got their eyes on our aristocrats and our government.”

“You mean that gaggle of foreigners they call the Communards?” I said. “Those poor folk in Seven Dials?”

If you’re not familiar with the Seven Dials area of London, let me acquaint you with its principal features: filth, sewage, cramped rooms, diseased beggars, loathsome shops, ragged urchins and fallen women of the lowest type. I don’t detest my sisters who live and ply their trade in that slum, but I’m jolly well glad I don’t.

Stoke nodded grimly. “After the Commune disintegrated, wasn’t safe for the radicals to stay in France. Moved here in droves and congregated in Seven Dials. Joined now by their compatriots from Italy, Germany, Poland, Russia. Every bloody anarchist who’s had to hare it out of his own country has found a home in London.”

“Any reason we shouldn’t send them back?”

“Requires careful handling,” said Stoke, savoring the taste of his moustache. He glanced at Dizzy. “Political issues and what have you. Mr. Gladstone—”

Dizzy growled. You had only to mention the name of William Gladstone, former prime minister, leading light of the Liberal Party and Dizzy’s greatest and most detested political enemy, for Dizzy to lay back his ears and show his teeth.

“That self-righteous prig. He’s marching about the country, pontificating on our duty to protect the rights of men to speak freely and engage in political discourse without being shot for their efforts. He says we can’t possibly force these people back to their own countries where the authorities will imprison them or torture them or kill them.”

“Would happen, of course,” said Stoke.

“Of course,” echoed Dizzy. “But the pious old fool seems to forget that in offering a safe harbor for these radicals, he’s created a nest of vipers. These zealots did not give up their ideals when they came to London. They still want to destroy aristocrats and monarchs and bring down governments, and they’re not particular about which country they destabilize. While they enjoy our English hospitality, they’re planning to demolish our nation. The newspapers are clamoring for the arrest and prosecution of the killers of Carrington and Ebbechester and the rest. Every editor in this city has challenged the government to do something. Our citizens are afraid to walk the streets for fear they’ll be caught up in an assassination attempt. The situation has become untenable, and we must do something about it.”

Dizzy quirked an eyebrow in my direction, and I took a hasty draught of my whisky to fortify myself for what was to come.

“That is the reason I have called you here tonight, Miss Black. Superintendent Stoke and I would be most grateful for your assistance.”

“What is it that you wish me to do?” I already had an inkling, knowing as I did how the pretty young French girls supported themselves and their families in the Communard community. The authorities have so little imagination. If there’s a prostitute in the mix, well, let’s call in our own resident slut to deal with the matter. It was likely that Dizzy and Stoke wanted me to strike up an acquaintance with some of these girls to learn what they knew of anarchist plans brewing in the Seven Dials. I’d hear what the two men had to say, but I wasn’t about to go slumming in the vague hope of picking up gossip.

“Need counterintelligence operatives,” Stoke said wetly through his moustache. “Not enough fellows on the force to spare the men myself. Prime minister’s fellows all engaged on other matters.”

So presumably French had gone away on a mission for Dizzy.

The prime minister spoke. “We were most favorably impressed by your performances during the affair of the War Office memo and the resolution of the matter at Balmoral.” His voice was smooth as treacle and his smile saintly. I girded my loins and waited to see what he proposed.

“We’d like you to infiltrate one of these anarchist groups and report to us on their activities.” The saintly smile grew grim. “It will be dangerous.”

“Will I be the only agent on this mission?” I asked with what I thought was a remarkable display of coolness, considering that the idea of penetrating a group of nihilists who played with gunpowder and dynamite without French by my side was, shall we say, daunting.

Dizzy nodded. “You have always worked with Mr. French in the past. Unfortunately I have assigned him to another matter and he is unavailable at the moment. You would act alone, but of course Superintendent Stoke and I will be available for advice and counsel.”

A fat lot of good that would do when the bullets were flying or the dynamite was exploding, but I refrained from giving expression to the thought. The prime minister and Stoke were eyeing me steadily, their faces deliberately blank. If I said no, would I ever get another opportunity to strike out on my own? Or would I be consigned to the part of French’s lieutenant, forever destined to play a subordinate role in these affairs of state? If I failed, I could wave good-bye to any future other than madam of Lotus House, but if I succeeded, well, who knows what vistas might open up to India Black? I entertained a brief image of an audience with the Queen and French looking on admiringly as I collected a gaudy medal from the old trout. I do believe it was that vision of French humbly applauding my achievement that decided me.

“I’ll do it,” I said.

Stoke expelled a breath, and Dizzy nodded gravely. “I felt sure that you would. Now, the superintendent will inform you of what you need to know.”

There was a pause while Stoke extracted the ends of his moustache from his mouth. “Rumors all over the city,” he said. “New group formed. Call themselves the Dark Legion. Silly name, of course, but these anarchist groups go in for such drivel. Black Banner, Black Flag and similar rot. Dark Legion is new, formed by chaps who were active in the Paris Commune. Implicated in bombings and assassinations in Europe. Got a bit hot for them there, and they’ve moved operations to England. Been operating north in Manchester and out in Liverpool. Now they’ve come to London. Word on the street is that the leader is one of the most influential men in the anarchist community. Chap named “Grigori.” Find him and we cut the head off the snake.”

He paused to slurp his moustache. “Need the leader,” he repeated. “Here’s what we want you to do. Join the Dark Legion. Find out who’s behind them. Description, address, anything. My men take it from there.” He looked lugubriously at me. “Got to be careful. Anarchists infiltrated routinely by intelligence agencies and police. Paranoid lot. Kill you quick if they think you’re a government agent.”

Bugger. This would be tricky. I’d be spying on a group of people who suspected everyone of being a spy. I was beginning to wish my first individual assignment had been trailing some Turkish diplomat to the opera and seducing him afterward. I find Turkish men remarkably attractive. There was a fellow once, reminded me a bit of French, actually—

Superintendent Stoke interrupted my reverie. “Informant tells me there’s a French prostitute named Martine. Supposed to be affiliated with the Dark Legion. Maybe a member, maybe not.”